Drive schemes for cholesteric materials are disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/852,319, which is incorporated herein by reference. As discussed therein, a two phase drive scheme may be employed to completely drive the cholesteric liquid crystal material from one texture to another. This drive scheme, although simple in application requires the use of relatively long duration pulses with a large magnitude for the preparation and selection phases. As a result, use of the disclosed two phase drive scheme generates a flicker when operative at a video rate frequency. Moreover, the disclosed two phase drive scheme requires high voltage application and therefore costlier drive circuits.
Based upon the foregoing, it is evident that there is a need in the art for a drive scheme which is simple yet employs lower voltage values to attain the desired texture. Moreover, there is a need in the art for a simple two phase drive scheme which is suitable for video rate operation.